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You Know You’re Having a Bad Food Experience When…

by Victoria on November 16, 2009

So I’m now in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on vacation and while I was eating one of the worst meals of my life, I had an idea for this post.

This is basically my experience last night dining at a Mediterranean à la carte restaurant called “El Olivo” at the Gran Bahia Principe Ambar. I mean, I know that when you’re at this type of resort and in the Dominican and you’re eating for ‘free’ you can’t really have high expectations…but…for your reading enjoyment I thought I’d turn it into a top ten list – “You know you’re having a bad food experience when:”

10. …you walk into the restaurant 25 minutes early for your reservation (because you’re so hungry after sitting and relaxing in the sun all day) and they seat you right away in the half-empty restaurant.

9. …the server tries to do funny dance moves while pouring your wine and makes jokes (probably to distract you from the taste of your meal).

8. …you look over to the faces of the other diners and come across a larger American picking at his food with a look of mild distaste on his face.

7. …you take a bite out of the lobster on the grilled seafood “daily chef’s special” and you get this overwhelming sense that you’re in a laundry room filled with dirty, sweaty socks.

6. …your boyfriend orders a tuna dish that was completely different from yours, yet it still had the same gravy sauce all over it as every part of your dish.

5. …you eat a grilled prawn and it tastes like a cross between chlorine and bleach. You’re not sure how to describe it and your boyfriend says “Chlorax” and you spit out your food thinking of a cross between anthrax and bleach. Hmmm…

4. …the servers don’t even ask once how you’re enjoying the food, because they already know the answer to that question.

3. …you take a bite of the desserts and you wonder if they were the leftovers from the breakfast buffet…two days ago.

2. …they get your dessert order wrong and bring you over the right one even though you say you don’t want another one anymore…because they can’t get rid of it fast enough and don’t want to have to be the ones to eat those leftovers…?

1. And finally…You know you’re having a bad food experience when…you eat at an à la carte restaurant at an all-inclusive resort and you end up going back to the regular buffet afterwards to continue eating because you couldn’t get enough down to fill you up.

I’m really hoping that there won’t be a part two to this post, once we head to the next à la carte on the list…

P.S. the resort is absolutely gorgeous in every other way though – I will likely post some pics later on (my camera battery died today).

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